Sunday, January 22, 2017
Disneyland plans to add a digital Fastpass option
ANAHEIM, CALIF.
Disneyland’s Fastpass ticketing system, which lets visitors avoid the long lines for crowded attractions by booking a ride time, has been a free feature since it was created in 1999.
But Disney announced last week that it will let parkgoers use the Disneyland smartphone app to electronically book and redeem Fastpasses, as well as download unlimited photos taken by resort photographers – for $10 a day.
The resort said the new electronic feature will launch later this year.
The advantage of the electronic Fastpass is that park visitors don’t have to stand in line at a Fastpass kiosk to retrieve a ticket to book a time to get on an attraction and avoid the long queues.
But visitors will have to wait until they get past the turnstiles to book the digital Fastpass, rather than doing so from home or elsewhere in the resort.
The new digital Fastpass option, dubbed Maxpass, will operate alongside the free, paper Fastpass ticket system.
City’s facelift tries to maintain vitality of its antique trade
walnut, iowa
Walnut residents hope streetscape work and building renovations will help return their small town to its former glory.
The Pottawattamie County community of about 775 residents has long been known as the Antique City for its many antique shops. Merchants and city officials want to burnish that distinction.
Construction started in November on facade upgrades on 16 storefronts. The work should be finished in time for the 35th annual Walnut Antique Show on Father’s Day weekend, June 16-18.
The streetscape work will come later and include upgrades to sidewalks, curbs and gutters as well as straightening and leveling the cobblestone roadway downtown.
The $1.09 million project is funded in part by a $400,000 Iowa West Foundation grant and a $300,000 revitalization grant from the Iowa Economic Development Authority.
Business owners are contributing funds, and the city is putting up $335,000 in local option sales tax dollars.
Radio museum in Georgia will sign off, move inland
St. marys, ga.
The Georgia Radio Museum and Hall of Fame is moving its collection of antique radios, records and sound equipment from coastal St. Marys to a new home in metro Atlanta.
The News of Brunswick reports that museum co-founder and manager John Long plans to close the location at the St. Marys Welcome Center at the end of March.
The new museum in Forest Park is scheduled to open Memorial Day weekend.
Long, a former disc jockey, says he’s got “mixed emotions” about moving. The museum opened in 2014, seven years after the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame was founded.
But the space is limited and much of Long’s vast collection of memorabilia remained in storage.
Long says Forest Park officials answered an advertisement he placed with the Georgia Municipal Association.
Geography quiz
Q. True or false? The Hague is the capital of the Netherlands.
A. False. Amsterdam is the capital, though The Hague is the official seat of government.
Combined dispatches